According to the Associated Press, Fred. Olsen Cruise Lines said it had
reported a small number of influenza-like cases on board that did not
appear linked to the new coronavirus – and that the patients had
recovered.
The ship sailed to the Dutch island of St Maarten and is awaiting approval to dock there, local port officials have said.
Italy’s coronavirus death toll has reached 21 and some 820 people have
been infected, the civil protection chief has said, while number of
those who have recovered from the virus is increasing.
Authorities say all the victims were elderly people who had also been suffering from other health issues.
Lombardy’s governor, Attilio Fontana, says situation intensified sharply in Lodi, near Milan, on Thursday; with a sudden spike in the number of people hospitalised.
“Unfortunately another emergency broke out in Lodi overnight,” Fontana,
who has put himself into self isolation after a regional government
employee tested positive, told La7 television. “There was a rush of
hospitalisations yesterday afternoon with 51 people in a serious
condition, including 17 who were put in intensive care.”
Public Health England (PHE) has confirmed the latest case is a resident
of Surrey and it that it’s working with the county council to manage the
situation. Dr Alison Barnett, the centre director for PHE South East, said:
Public Health England is contacting people who had close contact with a confirmed case of Covid-19.
One of the latest cases is a resident of Surrey and we’re working
closely with NHS colleagues in that area as well as Surrey county
council to manage the situation and help reduce the risk of further
cases.
Close contacts will be given health advice about symptoms and emergency
contact details to use if they become unwell in the 14 days after
contact with the confirmed case.
This tried and tested method will ensure we are able to minimise any risk to them and the wider public.
Surrey county council’s interim director of public health, Ruth Hutchinson, added:
Surrey county council is working with health colleagues to do everything
we can to stop the virus spreading and ensure the people of Surrey are
protected.
Good hygiene is the best prevention and there are some simple steps you
can take to protect you and your family by washing your hands regularly
and thoroughly, and if you cough, cover your mouth and nose with a
tissue.
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our reporting is free and available for everyone. We need your support
to keep delivering quality journalism that’s open and independent. Every
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The Department of Health and Social Care has said the virus was passed
on in the UK but the original source of the virus was “unclear”. It
added that there was no “immediately identifiable link” to overseas
travel.
The virus was passed on in the UK but the original source of the virus
is unclear at this stage. We do not currently have complete
understanding of the chain of transmission in this case, but there is no
immediately identifiable link to overseas travel.
Given the recent increases in international case numbers, especially
Europe, it is highly likely that we will soon see some instances of
community transmission in the UK.
Whitty has said:
One further patient in England has tested positive for Covid-19. The virus was passed on in the UK.
It is not yet clear whether they contracted it directly or indirectly
from an individual who had recently returned from abroad. This is being
investigated and contact tracing has begun. The patient has been
transferred to a specialist NHS infection centre at Guy’s and St
Thomas’.
The total number of cases in England is now 18. Following confirmed
cases in Northern Ireland and Wales, the total number of UK cases is 20.
A further patient in England has tested positive for coronavirus and the
illness was passed on in the UK, chief medical officer Prof Chris Whitty said.
Amazon tells employees to defer all non-essential travel
Amazon has said all employees should defer non-essential travel,
including within the US, in a significant escalation by the world’s
largest online retailer to guard against the spread of the coronavirus
among its ranks.
Dave Clark, the senior vice president of worldwide operations, notified
employees of the change on Thursday, which Amazon confirmed to Reuters.
Amazon
has told employees to defer all non-essential travel due to the
coronavirus, Reuters is reporting. Photograph: Thomas Samson/AFP via
Getty Images
Updated
The acting White House chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, has accused the
media of stoking fear over the coronavirus as a plot to take down Donald
Trump, Politico reports.
Speaking at a conservative activist conference in Maryland, Mulvaney
suggested the coronavirus was not as serious as other viral outbreaks.
At any particular time, 20 million people in this country are going to
have the flu. The flu kills people, it does. This is not Ebola, OK? And
I’ll tell you what that means in a sense.
It’s not Sars. It’s not Mers. Why do we say that? When you look at the
severity of diseases, one of the ways you can look at it is looking at
the percentage of people who get it who die. I know that’s sort of
hard-hearted, but that’s sort of how we look at it.
But Mulvaney added that the US would “probably” experience school closures as Covid-19 continued to spread around the world.
Are you going to see some schools shut down? Probably. May you see
impacts on public transportation? Sure. But we do this. We know how to
handle this.
So, that’s one of the things – that’s the kind of message you try to get
out. There are professionals who know how to handle this.”
You can keep up with all our live US political coverage here:
Boris Johnson says coronavirus is now UK government's top priority
Boris Johnson has said that taking measures to slow the spread of the
coronavirus is his government’s top priority and that the public is
right to be concerned, in his first television appearance to talk about
the issue.
The prime minister said: “On the issue of coronavirus, which obviously
is a great concern to people, I just want to reassure everybody and say
that the NHS is making every possible preparation. As you can imagine,
the issue of coronavirus is something that is now the government’s top
priority.
“I have just had a meeting with the chief medical officer and secretary
of state for health, talking about the preparations that we need to
make.”
He added that he would be chairing a meeting of ministers and officials on the subject on Monday.
Updated
Four more people have died in Italy from coronavirus, Reuters reports the country’s civil protection agency as saying on Friday.
The latest deaths bring the total in Italy to 21, while the number of
those testing positive for the illness jumped to 821 from 650 the day
before.
The outbreak, which began last week in Italy’s northern regions of
Lombardy and Veneto, has made the country the hardest-hit in Europe and
has led to draconian measures and a sharp reduction in economic
activity.
Lombardy will ask the government to maintain the containment measures
implemented against the outbreak for at least another week, the regional
government said on Friday.
Tourists
wearing protective face masks walk in Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II in
the centre of Milan. Photograph: Miguel Medina/AFP via Getty Images
Updated
Antonia Wilson, a reporter on the Guardian’s travel
desk, has investigated which countries currently have travel
restrictions related to the coronavirus outbreak. She writes:
International travellers are facing tighter restrictions at airports as
the number of countries denying entry to passengers who have recently
visited China, Italy and other regions with reported cases of coronavirus increases.
Cases of Covid-19 have now been confirmed in 58 countries. Restrictions
are becoming more widespread, and major airports are putting preventive
measures in place. A document featured on the International Air Transport Association (IATA) website, lists countries where restrictions are in place.
The Vatican has dismissed speculation that Pope Francis is anything more
than “slightly unwell” after he cancelled official audiences for a
second day, Reuters is reporting.
Francis, 83, appeared to have a cold and spoke with a slightly hoarse
voice at his general audience on Wednesday. He coughed during an
afternoon Ash Wednesday service in a Rome church, his last appearance
outside the Vatican.
Pope
Francis wipes his nose during the Ash Wednesday Mass opening Lent, the
forty-day period of abstinence and deprivation for Christians before
Holy Week and Easter Photograph: Gregorio Borgia/APMatteo
Bruni, a Vatican spokesman, said on Friday morning that the pope had
celebrated early morning mass as usual. “But he thought it was best to
postpone today’s official audiences. The meetings scheduled to take
place in Santa Marta will take place regularly,” Bruni said.
Later, Bruni said: “There is no evidence that would lead to diagnosing
anything but a mild indisposition. Even this afternoon, the Holy
Father’s meetings continued in Santa Marta.” However, he conceded that
the pope was still “slightly unwell”.
Updated
Surrey GP "is latest UK coronavirus infection"
Denis Campbell
A GP in Surrey is being taken to one of the UK’s six specialist centres
for infectious diseases amid fears he is the latest British case of
coronavirus, Denis Campbell, the Guardian’s health policy editor, reports.
The development is understood to have triggered an urgent investigation to see if any of his patients have the coronavirus too.
The case – which would be the 20th to emerge in the UK – has prompted
particular concern among health officials trying to limit the spread of
Covid-19.
The GP would routinely have seen scores of patients over the course of the last week before he became ill in the last 24 hours.
His diagnosis has yet to be publicly confirmed by Public Health England (PHE), NHS England
or the Department of Health and Social Care. Public health chiefs are
also worried by the unnamed doctor’s diagnosis because his wife is also a
GP. Read more:
Iceland has confirmed its first case of Covid-19, local media reports. The man is in isolation at Landspítali hospital after testing positive for the virus.
The man is reportedly not seriously ill, but tested positive for
coronavirus after recently returning from northern Italy – but outside
the area considered especially high risk for catching the virus.
Boris Johnson is under fire from opposition parties for waiting until next week to chair a Cobra meeting on the coronavirus outbreak. The meeting is scheduled to be held on Monday.
Labour has accused Johnson of acting as a “part-time prime minister”.
The shadow health secretary, Jonathan Ashworth, said: “Our part-time
prime minister needs to get a grip of this escalating situation quickly.
It shouldn’t take another three days for this meeting to take place.”
The acting leader of the Liberal Democrats, Ed Davey, said: “People
across the country are anxious and concerned about coronavirus. They
want to see leadership.
“The Liberal Democrats called on Boris Johnson to chair a Cobra meeting
weeks ago to ensure everything was being done to prepare for a potential
coronavirus outbreak. With the NHS already so stretched, it’s
gobsmacking that the prime minister has delayed chairing Cobra for so
long.
“Just like his failure to visit communities hit by flooding, on
coronavirus Johnson seems like he’d rather bury his head in the sand
than hear for himself what the experts are saying and what his ministers
are doing.”
Ofqual, the exam regulator for England, says it is considering how to
manage the dangers of a coronavirus outbreak disrupting this summer’s
GCSE and A-level exams, Richard Adams, education editor, reports.
Students are due to sit A-levels – crucial for university entry – in May
and June, but a widespread outbreak of Covid-19 at that point could
mean that, in worst-case scenarios, students and staff may be unable to
take the exams due to illness or quarantine restrictions.
In a statement Ofqual said: “We are working closely with awarding
organisations and the Department for Education to consider how to manage
any particular risks to the smooth running of exams and assessments
should there be a widespread outbreak of coronavirus.
“We will update our existing guidance to
reflect any specific arrangements schools and colleges should put in
place if required. In the meantime, students, schools and colleges
should continue to prepare for the summer exams and assessments as
usual.”
A-levels and GCSEs are taken from the second week of May until the
middle of June, with exam results published in mid-August. Disrupted
A-level results could complicate the process of university applications,
which rely in most cases on students gaining specific exam results. But
in a period of difficulty universities may use other methods to allot
places, such as previous exam results.
The Foreign Office has confirmed the death of a Briton who was onboard the Diamond Princess cruise ship.
A spokesman said: “We are supporting the family of a British man who has died in Japan and are in contact with local authorities. Our sympathies and thoughts are with his family at this difficult time.”
WHO: risk of global spread 'very high'
The WHO has said that the assessment of the risk of spread and risk of impact of Covid-19 is now “very high at global level”.
The director general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, told reporters in
Geneva that the continued increase in the number of coronavirus cases
and in the number of affected countries over the last days was “clearly
of concern” but there was still a chance it could be contained.
China’s 329 reported cases in the past 24 hours was the lowest figure there in more than a month, he added.
There were more than 20 vaccines in development globally and several
therapeutics were in clinical trials, Tedros said, and we could expect
the first results in a few weeks time.
"What we see at the moment are linked epidemics of #COVID19 in several countries, but most cases can still be traced to known contacts or clusters of cases. We do not see evidence as yet that the virus is spreading freely in communities"-@DrTedros#coronavirus
"As long as that’s the case, we still have a chance of containing this #coronavirus, if robust action is taken to detect cases early, isolate and care for patients and trace contacts"-@DrTedros#COVID19
Aer Lingus has confirmed that the person from Northern Ireland infected
with Covid-19 travelled on the airline to Dublin airport.
In a statement the airline said: “Aer Lingus can confirm that the
patient in Northern Ireland who has been diagnosed with the Covid-19
virus travelled with the airline from northern Italy to Dublin.
“Aer Lingus is co-operating fully with the HSE in relation to the
Covid-19 developments and is liaising with the Department of Foreign
Affairs, other government departments and the relevant authorities as
required.
“Aer Lingus will continue to assess the situation based on the guidance received.”
Stocks are falling sharply in New York, as the coronavirus market rout continues.
The Dow dropped by 761 points at the start of trading. That’s a drop of 2.96%, to 25,005 points.
The S&P 500 is down just over 3%, and the technology-focused Nasdaq dropped by 3.1%.
You can follow our live business coverage here:
